Today I turn, am, have, or complete 65, depending on your language (and those are just the few that I know). But whatever the verb, it’s an odd moment: long expected and yet totally surprising. I cannot yet comment on the state itself but as I sit here, between the idea and the reality, I have a few random thoughts, as the aged often do. Continue reading
He’s the Canadian Oneida actor, not the English novelist.
He’s played Aboriginal roles – like his Oscar-nominated role in Dances with Wolves, and truly scary gangster Malachi Strand on Longmire.
He’s played non-Aboriginal roles, like Shakespeare’s Shylock at Stratford, and hearing-challenged explosives expert Edgar K. B. (Kaboom?) Montrose on The Red Green Show. Continue reading
I’ve written bitterly about the depredations of squirrels on my magnolia tree.
I’ve written bemusedly about the challenge of finding views of flowers that are more than just pretty – something a wee bit different.
Today’s offering from Vancouver (where, apparently, the squirrels don’t gorge on magnolia buds in the Spring) tackles both topics.
Magnolia
Rhododendron
Better known as Stompin’ Tom, likely.
Hello out there, we’re on the air, it’s Hockey Night tonight
Best known for The Hockey Song, maybe, released in 1973 but achieving iconic status in 1992 when it was played at an Ottawa Senators game. It’s now played at every Toronto Maple Leafs home game.
Tension grows, the whistle blows, and the puck goes down the ice
This man whom SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada) called our national poet laureate (300 songs, more than 30 albums, 4 million copies sold), was a bit prickly:
The goalie jumps, and the players bump, and the fans all go insane
We drove through Skinners Pond PEI, once, which is as close as I ever came to the man himself. That and being able to sing along with The Hockey Song (but can’t every Canadian?) and Sudbury Saturday Night.
Someone roars, “Bobby scores!” at the good ol’ hockey game.
After he died, NDP MPs sang Bud the Spud in the foyer of the Parliament buildings.
But he got – and gets – the last word, on his tombstone:
The body has returned to sod,
The spirit has returned to God.
So on this spot, no need for grief,
Here only lies a fallen leaf.
Until new blossoms form in time,
The tree is where I now reside.
But with this poem, as you can see,
They haven’t heard the last of me.
This bridge has three names:
I had set out to add a photo shoot of the Thousand Islands Bridge to a family visit in Kingston. Unfortunately, the weather was showery and grey. Disastrously, pedestrian access to the bridge was closed until May. This was as close as I got.
But the river goes for a long way, and the Big Guy suggested we try for the next crossing, at Prescott. And so we did, finding a lovely bridge with impressive pylons and a central suspension portion to allow for river traffic. And a little bit of sun.
View from upstream
View from downstream
View from underneath
Mount Robson was (likely) named after someone whose name wasn’t Robson: Colin Robertson. That weirdness alone entitles it to a spot on this list.
It also features in several mountain lists of which I knew nothing before I started looking at Mount Robson online:
There are two ways to think about a mountain’s height: how high it is from sea level, and how high it is above you when you’re standing where you can see it. Mount Robson does pretty well on both counts.
Mount Robson is the most prominent mountain in North America’s Rocky Mountain range; it is also the highest point in the Canadian Rockies. . . . Mount Robson boasts great vertical relief over the local terrain. From Kinney Lake, the south-west side of the mountain rises 2,975 m (9,760 ft) to the summit. – Wikipedia
As for isolation, its south face is visible from right along the Yellowhead Highway, but its famous north face is visible after hiking a ways. How far? Well, that depends who you ask. One spot says it’s a 12-mile hike, but another says that Berg Lake is 12 miles from the parking lot, and it seems to me I might want to come back, too.
I suspect that people like Mount Robson more for its beauty than for its height and isolation. I don’t have photos of my own to share with you, but these Google Images are a fair substitute.
Thanks to Jim Taylor for suggesting Mount Robson for this list.
Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breezes
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me in.
– Robert Fletcher & Cole Porter
In today’s world, even in the wide open country that I love, being fenced out seems to be a bigger challenge than being fenced in.
Southern Arizona
Bisbee AZ
Bisbee AZ
Today is the 72nd anniversary of the final surrender of the German Forces in the Netherlands. The First Canadian Army played a major role in liberating Holland after five years of German occupation.
Of course, it didn’t happen in a day: Canadians fought across the Netherlands for eight months, from September 1944 to April 1945. Nor did it happen easily: more than 7,600 Canadian soldiers died. Continue reading
Pity the American Coot: It’s light on beauty in almost every category.
Its name is commonly used to derogate geezers, as in, “You old coot.”
It squawks rather than sings.
Its head is, well, a little less ugly than its feet, which are, frankly, kinda creepy.
Even the Cornell Ornithology Lab, which has a thing about birds, has trouble finding something nice to say.
The waterborne American Coot is one good reminder that not everything that floats is a duck. A close look at a coot — that small head, those scrawny legs — reveals a different kind of bird entirely.
But seen close-up and in the right light, its iridescent feathers are fabulous.
Hokey-pokey move
Yoga pose
A big caboose
Built-in bustle
Posted: 2025 Aug 20
